Photo: SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP / Getty Images
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is open to negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, including considering shelving the annexation of his country to NATO, after also regretting that he has not received the promised aid.
The statement about the withdrawal from NATO was mentioned by Zelensky himself in an interview with NBC News, but his adviser Ihor Zhovkva also revealed it to Bloomberg Television and on German public television ARD, according to the Efe agency.
The president told US television that NATO had a certain “fear” of confronting Russia directly, which had prevented it from receiving the military aid that Ukraine needs .
“Regarding NATO, my stance has cooled”, Zelensky said. “The Alliance is afraid of controversial things and confrontation with Russia”.
Zhovkva said separately that a possible negotiation with the Russians will depend on security conditions.
“We can talk about the neutrality of Ukraine under certain conditions”, stated Zhovkva when asked about this question and after Zelensky also hinted at the willingness to “deal” with Moscow on status of the breakaway republics of Donbas.
The invasion of Ukraine by Russia started after President Putin’s recognition of these republics, which was followed by the dispatch of what the Kremlin described as “peace forces” in support of the Donbas leaders.
“We want guarantees on Ukraine’s sovereignty,” added the advisor to the Ukrainian president before the aforementioned German television, after ratifying Kiev’s willingness to “talk” with Moscow.
The essential conditions for these negotiations are the withdrawal of Russian troops and a ceasefire, added the adviser, who on the other hand urged the German government to impose stronger sanctions against Russia, including the complete blocking of the Swift system for Russian banks.
No Help Promised
Zelensky denounced on Tuesday the unfulfilled promises of the West to defend Ukraine from the military offensive launched by Russia thirteen days ago.
“We have been listening to promises for thirteen days, thirteen days that they are telling us that there will be help in the sky, that there will be planes, that they will give it to us,” Zelenski said in a new video message published on the account of Telegram from his office.
“The blame for every death, every person in Ukraine from air strikes and blockaded cities is, of course, the Russian State, Russian Army. Of those who give and execute criminal orders. Of those who violate all the rules of war and of those who deliberately destroy the Ukrainian people”, he pointed out, however.
“The fault lies with the occupants, but the responsibility of this also falls on those who, somewhere in the West, for thirteen days in some office, have obviously not been able to make a necessary decision “, stressed the Ukrainian president.
The responsibility is also “of those who have not yet secured the Ukrainian sky (to protect us) from Russian assassins and did not save our cities from air strikes, bombs, missiles (…)”, he emphasized.
The President of Ukraine stressed that hundreds of thousands of people in the country’s cities are on the threshold of life and death, “literally, and not as politicians say in words when they refer to the supply of combat aircraft to Ukraine.”
“Anti-missile defense is vital. It is vital! exclaimed the president, who announced that he would make “a direct appeal to the citizens of the world if international leaders do not make every effort to stop this war.”
Zelensky explained that there are talks with leaders and parliamentarians around the world who “know how to help Ukraine”, but that “there are things that don’t they can be decided in negotiations, which do not depend directly on us, but on humanity, which must win in the important capitals”.
“Then -he added- we will see a safe sky over Ukraine and unblocked cities (…) We can do it together as a people of the world, and if the world stays on the sidelines, it will be lost to always”, he insisted.
With information from EFE